


It's not a date, it's a rendez-vous

by thatbluenote



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst and Feels, BAMF Karen Page, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Kastle Christmas Secret Santa Gift Exchange, POV Karen Page, page nelson and murdock, references to the Defenders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 22:03:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17149889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatbluenote/pseuds/thatbluenote
Summary: Karen tries to keep it professional despite the fact that she’s not certain she can keep her feelings for Frank under wraps. And besides, he keeps buying her dinner and showing up at her apartment...





	It's not a date, it's a rendez-vous

**Author's Note:**

> This is a secret Santa gift for kylorendered on Tumblr! Enjoy :)

 

**i.**

 

Karen shivered and quickened her stride along the dark sidewalk, pulling up the hood of her down jacket for warmth. Her source that night turned out to be a total bust, a low-level informant with nothing more to offer than the same weak rumors she’d already heard about this case. 

It took her a second to catch the sound of footsteps following her, in sync with her own; a fraction of a second more and she relaxed the hand reaching into her bag for her gun. She’d recognize the sound of those boots anywhere.

Frank caught up with her one long stride or two later. “Nice night for a stroll,” he said, the fog of his breath haloing and unhaloing his face at every word.

Out of the corner of her eye, Karen glimpsed only his sharp profile beyond the black hood of his jacket. The familiar slope of his shoulders and the cadence of his walk were reassuring after the night she’d had; the easy familiarity between them was a balm to her nerves. “You checking up on me?” Karen said. “Again?”

“‘Again’,” he echoed, scoffing. His amusement crackled in the crisp air, harsh gravel rumbling over the white noise of Jersey City around them. “You had it all under control. He was wasting your time and he knew it.”

Karen laughed under her breath. It was true, the guy had looked spooked when she turned to go after he offered that useless rumor; even more so when she rolled her eyes at the shitty sidearm he’d flashed.

She glanced over at Frank as they walked, curious. His large hands curled deep in the pockets of his hoodie, inside his unzipped field jacket: tonight he looked surprisingly carefree. A stranger might never guess he had at least three weapons on him, or that he was still nursing a sprained rib and a shin full of lacerations from a fight a couple weeks ago. “So. You just happened to be in Jersey City tonight?”

His smile was there and gone, a spectre in the dark. “Yup,” he said. 

“Hmm,” Karen muses, skeptical.

“Coincidence.” Frank looked her in the eye for the first time, tipping his head back. “God’s honest truth.” Eyes wide, daring her to contradict him.

“That’s the third or fourth coincidence in the last couple weeks, you know. People are going to stop taking my calls if they find out you’re shadowing me.”

“Hey--hey now. I’m not shadowing you. Your sources just keep crossing paths with my--” His eyes cut away. All the easy jesting faded from his voice. “You gotta go for the tough cases, huh?”

Karen’s gaze snapped to his and the weight of history dragged between them, dragging them together, holding them apart. Old news. Nothing that hadn’t hovered there and been ignored between them before, she thought. Karen sighed, her breath a cold fog wreathing her face. “It’s this new client. A multiple homicide case.”

“‘Anyone I know?”

Karen sputtered out a laugh, but when he didn’t respond in kind she looked up at Frank and saw him watching her closely, his jaw tight and tense. “Oh, you’re serious,” she said.

“Yes ma’am.”

“It’s complicated,” Karen said, stalling. “It’s a big case. You really want to know all the boring details?” They turned the corner and were no longer alone on the sidewalk; a bus stop shelter with two women waiting outside the bodega’s spill of greenish fluorescent light, and a few stragglers hurrying in and out of the entrance to the Path Train just beyond, where she was headed. 

Karen paused next to the train entrance, reluctant to continue. Frank normally avoided the trains -- too many people, far too many cameras -- but it was past midnight, she’d been up for almost eighteen hours now, and she just wanted to sit down. But something else was bothering her.

She didn’t know where Frank was staying these days; but she knew it had been a week since she last saw him, and now he was wearing the same dark Levis; if he was not doing laundry then she doubted he had been taking care of his latest injuries, either.

Karen came to a decision. “How long’s it been since you had your shin looked at?” Before he could answer, she headed down the Path Train entrance stairs, checking over her shoulder to make sure that he followed her. He pulled his hood up to shadow his face even more. “Come get fixed up at my place and I’ll tell you all about our client,” Karen said, swiping herself through the turnstile and then turning to hold out her MetroCard to him. “Come on. We can trade notes.”

Frank’s dark eyes danced with amused disbelief for a moment, then he reached out and his rough, calloused fingers plucked the yellow and blue card out of her hand. “You’re the boss.” He swiped the card and followed her.

“You owe me three bucks, Frank,” Karen said as they hurried down the stairs to the platform, where the train was already approaching. 

“Nah. You owe me for the pho I’m going to order when we get to your place.” The train shrieked to a stop a moment later. 

Karen had to bite back a smile. These little meetups with Frank are starting to become a regular thing. First he had been waiting on her fire escape late one night, needing help to bandage a cut on his back, and she had ordered a pizza for them to share while she forced him to ice the bruises he wouldn’t explain. Then he had surprised her with a roast beef on rye from her favorite deli, showing up when she left the bar after meeting with a source. 

They traded back and forth: pad thai on her roof, a meatball sub shared between her spot at the living room window and his spot on her fire escape while she passed him gauze and band-aids for his beat-up shin; kebabs and falafel on a long walk back to her apartment from work when she’d had to leave after midnight. Other times, other talks; always late, always with that same half-grin on his face when their eyes first met, before his shifted away.  

Sometimes, she guessed, he needed to know she was safe. Sometimes he wanted to talk away from prying eyes. Sometimes he needed her hands to help close a wound he couldn’t reach. Sometimes, Karen thought, he came around for reasons that were suspiciously vague and he stayed for a long time guarding her fire escape afterward. 

She didn’t mind. In fact, she liked it. A lot. So much it scared her a little to think about it, sometimes.

But this was the first time he’d actually agreed to come in.

She tried not to think about it too much, but part of her was greedy for the time they spent together. She didn’t like the feeling, so instead she asked him where he planned to order the pho, and gave him a good dressing-down about why her favorite place was better.

It was easier this way, Karen thought. At least, she hoped.

_______

Karen paged through the sixteenth background report, her eyes swimming with exhaustion. She welcomed the distraction when her phone finally buzzed from the couch cushion next to her, rousing her from her stupor.

“Trish, hi. Thanks for calling me back.”

“No problem. Glad you’re still up.”

“Me too,” Karen said, stifling a yawn at the last minute. “Listen, I called because I’m hoping you can get me in touch with Jessica Jones.”

There was silence on the line for a beat too long, but Karen knew enough to let it linger. Finally she heard Trish clear her throat uncomfortably. “Well, she runs a business. I mean, anyone can ring the doorbell and walk into Alias Investigations, you know that.”

“And I know her reputation. Trish, she’s your best friend. She’ll actually listen if it comes from you.”

“Listen, it’s not...it’s complicated. I love her, but she’s not the most reliable source…”

“This isn’t for a story, actually. I need to hire her. There are some special circumstances and I think there are parts of it that she’d be a good match for. If you catch my drift.” 

“I do, yeah. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. And since when does the Bulletin hire private investigators to do their dirty work?”

“It’s not for the Bulletin. I don’t work there anymore. I guess you could say I do a little of what Jessica does, but I don’t have quite her...special expertise. I’m investigating background on a criminal defense case for Franklin and Murdock. ”

Trish heaved a long sigh. “Murdock. Even better,” she muttered. “You know, I wonder sometimes… don’t you think it’s dangerous?”

Karen’s cheeks flushed with warmth. “What do you mean?”

“Going back to work with someone who’s burned you that badly. Why isn’t the first time enough of a warning for us?” Trish mused. “Jess is--they’re different from us, Karen. She’s the most reliable unreliable person I know. She doesn’t live in the same world as you and me. She thinks about the world differently because she just isn’t…”

“Human?” Karen supplied.

Trish’s breath exploded into the phone, a pressure valve of frustration. “You know what I mean.”

Karen swept her hair back, exhaustion and a shaky sense of righteousness suddenly warring inside her. “I do and I don’t. Matt and Jessica and--and other people like them...you talk about Jess like her main superpower is being a bad friend.”

“Yeah, well. It worries me if you don’t see how getting close to people like that can have consequences. Real consequences.”

“I think we’re more like them than we know,” Karen said quietly. 

“Maybe,” Trish sighed. “Listen, maybe you’re right. And honestly, if you want to fuck up Murdock’s defense case by hiring a loose cannon to do your background checking, it’s your funeral. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Karen grabbed a pen and jotted down the phone number Trish gave her before they hung up. In the silence of her apartment, she stared at the scribbled numbers, wondering if she was making a mistake. Maybe friendship was a risk. But it wasn’t Matt’s friendship she thought of in that moment.

When it came down to it, the decision to hire Jessica Jones was Matt and Foggy’s and Karen wouldn’t waste a second more thinking about it. But her friendship with Frank weighed heavily on her mind, mulling over Trish’s words; part of her knew that was a risk, and she had been keeping a certain distance all along. Then there was the part of her that wanted so much more she would rather stand at the cliff’s edge than back away from the danger.

_______

**ii.**

Maybe following a former money launderer all the way to this dive bar wasn’t Karen’s best idea, but it had been her only idea. Everything pointed to money laundering, but so far she hadn’t managed to turn up a single name connected to who was actually doing the deed. Jay Marino was her best bet, and this was his favorite place to go on a Friday night, apparently.

She lingered a couple storefronts down for a moment, pretending to fiddle with her phone. Marino stood on the sidewalk outside the bar smoking one cigarette after another before disappearing inside.

She quickly followed him. 

Inside, the bar lights were low and red-orange along the scarred bartop and the few tables and booths. A stale fog of lite beer and fryer oil, a jukebox playing Creedence Clearwater, a litter of pistachio nut shells underfoot: the dozen or so patrons didn’t even bother to look up when she entered. She took a stool at the bar, one or two down from Marino, who was talking with a younger man. It wasn’t long before the friend left for the restroom and she was able to corner Marino into a begrudging conversation.

“I told ya, I ain’t been workin’ for nobody,” he said, agitatedly signalling the bartender for another shot. “Can’t help you.” A song by the Stranglers came on,  _ Strolling along minding my own business, well there goes a girl and a half.  _ Marino’s tall frame hunched over his pint glass, folding himself into a smaller space at odds with his height and his bulk.

“Jay, I just need some names,” Karen said. At his stubborn silence, she tried another tack. “You know what? Ask me how I know it’s not you.”

He looked away from the Rangers game, gave her a thick-lidded look of mild curiosity over his Bud Lite.

“It’s because they got sloppy. You’re not sloppy, Jay,” Karen said. He finally turned to look at her fully, taking in her words. “I read your record. It took the FBI how many man-hours to track you down? Thousands?”

“Papers said ten thousand,” Marino said quietly, worrying at the edge of his bar napkin.

“Exactly. You were always smart about it. These guys, they don’t know the system yet. Whoever it is, they’re making rookie mistakes. Screwing up the whole business. They haven’t gotten caught at it yet, but last month there was a huge wire transfer to North Cyprus,” said Karen, and the man’s eyes bulged in disbelief briefly before flickering back to the hockey game.

But he didn’t say a word, not yet. She leaned in. “Just give me a lead.”

He hesitated, took a long gulp of his beer, his stubbled adam’s apple bobbing nervously as he looked at her. “Someone connected to the Port Authority drug ring that got busted. That’s who you mean?”

“All I need is a name.”

“I’ll give you a name, peaches,” his friend interrupted just then, breathing uncomfortably close to her face as he slung an arm around her shoulders and started pestering her, asking if she’s single.  “You want a name from this useless lunk? What kinda names you givin’ out, Marino, eh? You some kinda rat now or what? Hey peaches, you want a name, I’ll give you a name. Lemme buy you a drink.” The drunken weight of him overwhelmed her, and she knew she didn’t have long.

Marino retreated instantly behind another gulp of his beer as the other man leaned over Karen to wave for the bartender, and she used that moment to duck out from under his arm in a last, desperate attempt to get Jay to talk. 

“Jay, please--”

“Forget him, what do you want with him? My name’s the one you want. Name’s Jordan. This guy ain’t worth shit.” The younger man reached down the bartop to point at her. “Give me your number, I’ll give you anything you want,” he said with a disgusting wink. His fingers dropped to paw down her black Moleskine, squinting to read it in the low light. “Hey, you ain’t even wrote down my name!”

Under the heavy weight of his hand, her notebook and pen skittered to the filthy floor below the barstools, and all Karen could think about as she knelt down to retrieve them was that hopefully the street outside wasn’t deserted, so she could make her escape. It was after midnight and this wasn’t the nicest area.

When she stood up again, shrugging her bag over her shoulder, she heard the phone buzzing inside, and when she saw an unlisted number, she decided it was as good an excuse as any. “Hello?” 

Jordan was eyeing her, too close, and Marino avoided her eyes.

“Tell them it’s your boyfriend.”

“Frank?” She almost dropped her mobile.

“Make something up. I’m almost there.”

“Oh, uh…” Karen laughed nervously, turning away from the men at the bar. “Okay. Um, I guess I’ll see you in a few?” 

“Hold tight.” She could hear him grunt, like he was leaping down a flight of stairs somewhere, before he ended the call. By the time Karen turned around, Jordan was back at her side, listening in, and she hds to sidestep him again. “Sorry about that. That was my--uh, boyfriend. He’s coming to pick me up.”

“Is that so,” Jordan grunted, holding out a smudged glass of liquor to her, which she took and used as an excuse to step back. He followed her. Marino, on the other hand, wouldn’t look at her now and acted like their earlier conversation never took place. “Thought you said you was single.”

By the time the drunk guy’s eyes widened with fear, Frank’s arm settled around her waist with an ease and familiarity that sent a warm glow through her. Safety.

“Sorry if I’m interrupting, babe,” he said with charm laid out in his smile like a weapon. “You ready to go?”

“Just a second,” she smiled up at him, the last of her nerves making her bold; she handed her notebook to Marino, pressing it into his hand when he tried to avoid it. Jordan sputtered something and avoided Frank’s presence, moving down a stool aimlessly.

“Please, just write it down and I’ll be out of your hair,” Karen promised Jay.

Marino took one look at Frank’s mild yet menacing bulk behind him, scribbled a name in her notebook, and passed it back without a word. 

They were out on the sidewalk before she could even process how much she liked the feeling of his hand at the small of her back, guiding her through the grimy bar and onto the sidewalk, where he flagged down a passing taxi.

“Thanks...” she said, and when the cab door shut them in, quieter and safe, she added, “... _ Boyfriend _ .”

“You like it,” she thought she heard him say in a mocking undertone. It took her a moment to parse this over the noise of the car around them and because she was  trying to concentrate on Marino’s scribbles to make out what he’d written in her notebook. Anything to keep her mind off the memory of how Frank stepping in like that had sent a mad flutter through her stomach, something far from friendly and in the liquid territory of things she wanted and couldn’t name.

She flushed, realizing what he’s said. “Wait, what?”

“I said, you like him. That kid. You’d make a cute couple. Did I ruin your chances?” He was smiling, unapologetic.

She laughed. Marino had indeed scribbled a name and an address for her, everything she needed to keep her investigation going, to hand off the next part of it to Jessica and Alias Investigations. She also laughed because laughter was safer than meeting Frank’s eyes.

“I hope you did ruin my chances. No, I got everything I needed.”

“Good,” he said, watching her in the uneven passing lights of the city. “Then dinner’s on me.”

_______

Plastic quarts of beef pho steamed on the coffee table between them, and bean sprouts and sauce packets scattered and spilled out of the take-out bag. It was easy, this time with Frank, his surprising rumbles of deep-voiced laughter, his familiarity with her apartment -- where she kept the extra paper towels, which cupboard for mugs -- and the feeling spread a warmth through her that had nothing to do with the chili sauce floating on top of her noodle broth.

There were times when she could happily keep it this way between them, times when she wants nothing more than a friendly conversation over a veggie deluxe, and then there were times when his arms spread wide on the couch and he leaned back, looking at her across the way, and she held her breath. Wanting more. Wanting to climb across that coffee table into his lap, if he’d have her, if it wouldn’t cost her so much to admit it.

“You know what I like about you, Page?”

“What?” Willing her heart to stop jackrabbiting away from her.

“You know how to keep it simple.” His smile, slow and sly as he rose to come closer to her. For one mad, hopeful second, she hoped the night would go a certain way: and then he reached out to the window behind her, pulling up the sash so he can reach out to her fire escape and grab something he’d stashed out there.

It was nothing more than gauze, bandages, a few pre-threaded suture kits. It felt like a badge of trust. Frank hesitated, handing it to her only after a moment. “I’m asking too much. Tell me I’m asking too much.”

“You’re not. It’s fine. Frank, I want you to come here if you need help...if you want me to help in any way. It’s the least I can do.”

The other parts of what she wanted? She put those deep in her pocket. This was about safety, about trust, about needs far more dire than a kiss after midnight from the man who sometimes haunted her dreams.

In his eyes, dark and depthless, she saw the magnitude of what he has lost in his life, and what it cost him to place this vanishingly small obligation upon her. 

But later, Karen tested her own resolve. As he left that night, she placed a hand on his shoulder, and then lingered and let it drop to his muscled forearm. 

A friendly hand, she told herself. The kind of thing you do to reassure someone.  _ I see you. I hear you _ ,  _ Frank Castle _ .  _ I’m here. _

Yet her heart, ratcheting up again, did not get the message. That helpless, birdlike part of her wanted to fly headlong and reckless, never caring about the dangers below.

Her hand on his forearm. The warmth of his skin radiated through the layers of clothing beneath her fingers -- and Karen snatched her hand away and shoved it into her back pocket before she could give herself away.

Their words were meaningless in that moment. 

_ Goodbye. Thanks for the noodles. _

But his eyes dropped to where her hand had just been, and when he looked up again, not in a meaningless way, Karen caught her breath at everything she saw there. A wondering kind of longing in the widening dark of his eyes.

She told herself,  _ keep it simple _ . This was surely exactly what he meant. She could remind Frank of something more than the darker places in his memories, in her own clumsy way. 

“Goodnight, Frank,” she said, stepping back to close the door, ending it before he could say whatever she saw hovering there waiting to be said.  

Before she could disappoint him.

 

**iii.**

On a good day, Karen felt certain they would have had plenty to talk about, but she could sense this was not a good day for Jessica Jones. 

“Why are you after this guy and how goddamn stupid does Red have to be sending you after him?”

“He’s not,” Karen said. At Jessica’s wordless look, Karen amended, “Okay, not  _ exactly _ . But it wasn’t his idea.”

“You’re crazy to go after him. Listen, I found him for you, but this dude is a nutcase and he’d sooner shoot his own mother than help you.” Jessica’s eyes were already flickering towards the door of the cafe and Karen could tell she didn’t have long. “He’ll shoot you. Right between your pretty blue eyes.”

“Who’s to say I won’t shoot back?”

Jessica did not flinch at that, and Karen realized that she’d probably already run a check and knew all about the concealed carry permit.

Instead, Jessica looked at Karen with fatigue pulling at the skin around her eyes. “Do you really think that’s enough? Listen. I do this shit because I’m...unique. I can get myself out of it.”

“So can I. I’ve got...friends. And I’m not talking about Matt. He stays out of this. He works with the clients, I’m strictly on background investigation.”

“Yeah? Well, keep these friends of yours close.” Jessica’s knuckles cracked from deep within the pockets of her leather jacket and she rolled her head around briefly on her neck, stretching. “Ugh, listen to me. You know what they say about advice...”

“Is that the one about advice after mischief is worse than medicine after death?” Karen sat back, sick of being lectured. “For your information, I haven’t been up to any mischief yet. Not really.”

“Advice after mischief? Uh...no. I’ve never heard that one,” Jessica said, a quick, soundless huff of laughter escaping her lips. “I meant this one: that advice is a form of nostalgia.” She stood abruptly and turned to go. “Basically, I don’t know jack about shit, so don’t listen to me, okay? But stay away from this guy Brill.”

Still, she had dropped a piece of paper on Karen’s table with a name, a time and a date. Karen flipped it over and saw a crappy laser-printer image of the man she’d been searching for for over a month.

Karen considered Jessica’s advice, she really did.  _ Advice is a form of nostalgia _ . What close friends was Jessica nostalgic for? Karen didn’t know.

Karen did know that she didn’t feel capable of keeping friends close anymore. Foggy, Matt, she had to keep at a safe distance. She herself was the boundary, a wall between the right and the wrong sides of the law. A fulcrum, balanced and ready to tip the wrong way at any time.

But sometimes, Karen thought, you know you shouldn’t do it, but you still have to hop that fence to the wrong side of the tracks and go looking for the person you’ve been told to stay away from.

 

**iv.**

The firefight with Brill ended badly. There was no way to sugarcoat that.

Not until her apartment door slammed shut behind them had Karen realized Frank, sagging with fatigue and adrenaline, cradling his ribs with one bloody arm, was seconds from collapsing. He leaned against the wall as she shed her soaked jacket, then she had his good arm over her shoulders to wrestle his bulk into the bathroom to clean him up.

It was also not safe by the door, or in the living room by the windows; this she knew instinctively. The bathroom, windowless, was the only safe place she could fathom bringing him.

Frank grunted, breath heaving against her cheek and in her damp hair, as they managed the few steps down the hall. “I got you, come on,” she urged him in a desperate whisper, adrenaline shaking every muscle in her as she kept pulling him, pushing him, and herself, down the endless hallway. Ignoring the horrible twinge in her own ankle that makes every step twice as worse.

They were both soaked to the bone from the hard rain. It pinged loudly on the fire escape outside her living room window, turning into hail. A jangling, discordant sound, ice hitting each crooked metal strut; too much like a litter of metal casings hitting the ground during the firefight. 

She heaved Frank into the bathroom and eased him into a sitting position. “No, I got this,” he said with pained emphasis, using the wall to support himself on the way down. She ran to look for the stitch kit and clean gauze he had left at her apartment only a week ago, thinking  _ I have to call someone...Claire, or maybe Foggy will know what to do _ ...before she remembered what Brill had done, that deliberate grin of malice stuck like a skewer across his face.

_ Looking for this, Miss Page?  _ Crackling glass and metal and plastic in one cruel hand. Her phone, bent in half, crushed, tossed off the roof.

Her audio recordings, the pictures -- none of it backed up, goddamnit -- all gone. 

“Kare…” His hoarse voice echoing in the bathroom as she searches through a pile in her living room where she  _ swears  _ she left that goddamn suture kit.

“Hang on, hang on, Frank,” she pleaded in desperation, finally finding the gauze package under a newspaper and despairing of finding the sutures. 

In the bathroom, Frank lay, passed out now, on the tile on his side, head pillowed on one arm flung crookedly above him. Blood pooled under him from the wound, congealing, and now that he lay still, she pulled up his shirt gingerly and wondered if the messy wound was as sickeningly close to his kidneys as it appeared, or if she was just being paranoid.

He was either passed out from fatigue and loss of blood, and was going to be fine, or he had internal bleeding and blood poisoning and a ruptured kidney, and was about to die.

The only thing she could latch onto was the need to clean and close the wound, trading on the few fragments of first aid she could remember from a training she had attended as a teenager. When Karen finally found the suture kit, it took her awhile to realize that the shakiness was not in her hands, not her adrenaline at all, but a haze of tears continually welling up in her eyes. 

A continual well of frustration and panic, and a desperate need for this to end well.

It has to mean something. There has to be an after, as she told him once. As she always hoped, for him. 

The after, it turns out, is only reachable through the dark of her apartment, hiding from pursuers, with no cell phone to link her to the outside world, and no Frank to help her stitch the wound that might be killing him. Just herself and her wits and the prayers that start to fall from her lips in a constant, whispered cascade as she messily wipes the blood from his abdomen and begins to work.

 

**v.**

It was a long, dark night, but at least the darkness was safe. 

Frank slept through the night on her bathroom floor. Karen held her gun in one hand, watching the bathroom door she had wedged shut with a stool, just in case. 

He did not stir for the longest time, though his breath stayed even and his skin never turned hot with fever. She reached out once to feel the pulse at his wrist, and was surprised by his hand clasping, shifting almost reflexively to hold her hand. She held on for a long time, longer than she was willing to admit, just staring at the line of his profile revealed in the gloom.

The adrenaline had worn off. She lived in suspended time on the bathroom tile, ignoring the cold and striving only to survive and stay vigilant. To not think certain thoughts that rose up no matter what she did.

His face, close enough to her that she now knew every detail of his face, if she hadn’t known it before. The line of his forehead dropping to that crooked, perfect nose. His lips, parted in sleep.  _ You know how to keep things simple.  _

_ But I don’t _ , she thinks numbly.  _ I don’t know how and I can’t keep pretending about it _ .

Not when it’s been too many hours, awake and alone in the dark next to his sleeping form, hoping he will wake up, hoping not to hear a sound from her apartment that means they’ve been found.

Not when the cold shivers its way into her skin, under her clammy shirt, so that she can only turn her back to Frank’s, trying to soak up his warmth as she pulls the thin towel over them both.

Not when exhaustion sinks deeper into her bones than Brill’s bullet that sliced through Frank tonight.

Under the towel, a shred of warmth, not looking at Frank anymore, Karen finally slept.

_______

A dull pain in her arm from the hard floor; a numb place where her left hip has been resting on the cold tile for hours; but a warmth over and through and around her made waking up in the dark feel safe.

Frank. It was Frank’s arms, around her. 

Somehow, without waking her, he had pulled thick layers of dry towels over them both, and now she feels the warmth of him pressed up against her back, cocooned under all that cloth. 

It took her a moment to remember everything, to let the moment slide into place. The firefight. The chase. Frank passing out in the bathroom. Stitching up that horrible gash in his stomach, swathing it in winding gauze, which she felt behind her now as a series of long, parallel lumps under his shirt. 

Just as he had sheltered her from gunfire (two times? three?), a hand cradling her head, his arms a protective circle. This time was different, though. The scent of him all around her was intoxicating, a spice of sweat and grime and even the sour tang of antiseptic; it was so much she knew she could not stay there an instant longer. 

She stirred, trying to twist out of his warmth so she could sit up. “Frank, I have to check your--”

But his arms stiffened ever so slightly around her, clutched her a little closer, and by the way he did moved only slowly she could tell he was not quite awake. One long, slow sigh flowed out of him, fluttering the hair at the back of her neck where his face was pressed.

“Frank. Please, your wound is really bad. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep. You’re...you lost a lot of blood.” Her voice, quiet and soothing, was pitched with regret. Somewhere just out of view was a bathtub full of stained towels she might never bleach clean.

“It must be getting near dawn. I can knock on a neighbor’s door and ask them to call for help, Frank. Just let me--”

A muffled  _ mnnnnn _ sound came from him. Then, “Gotta keep you warm,” was all he would say. The implacable strength and immovable mass of him. He did not want her to move. 

For a moment, Karen gave up trying to reason with him and focused on the skin of his arm looped over her body. An electricity prickled her skin, an awareness of where their skin touched, little points of impossible fire, though she tried to focus on what was important: no fever burned through him.

How long had she been asleep? The night swam in her memory, a tangle of fatigue-tinged vigilance and exhausted catnaps. In her current position, her left arm flung out a little toward the cupboard where she kept her towels, its drawers half-open.

She looked at the top drawer. The one she had not opened last night, while cleaning him up. The one where all the big, fluffy bath towels had been, the ones covering them both now. He must have gotten up to go searching.

Something like a memory nagged at her, though it was too fragmentary to grasp. His face, above her; no, above the palm of her hand. In the dark, in the middle of that long, terrible, exhausted night.

She closed her fingers around her own palm, blinking to catch the remnants of this memory. 

Karen listened to the soft near-snore of Frank’s breath, easing in and out of him, as his body pressed against her back. By the light under the bathroom door, there were still another few hours before dawn, she knew.

Hours to wonder about that memory. But of course, she fell asleep instead, his arm an anchor around her.

  
**vi.**

In the gray, diffuse light of early morning, Karen found herself alone in the bathroom, the door open to admit the promising, safe sounds of coffee brewing in the kitchen. The numb place on her hip woke into fiery pins and needles when she joined him.

Frank clutched a steaming cup of black coffee in one hand, watching out one window to the street. He offered her a nod but said nothing, and she felt suddenly cold as she fetched her own cup of coffee.

There was so much possibility in the cocoon of darkness, in the night, despite the adrenaline and the blood and the fatigue, despite the confusing memory of him turning her palm up in the middle of the night when he got up. She had dreamed his lips dropping a kiss in the center of her waiting palm. And all that possibility fled in the daylight, its wings folded like a moth’s, so that it seemed unreal, silly. All that had been a stupid girl’s complicated tongue-tied moment with her confusing, dangerous friend.

(More than a friend, though. She knew that much. Friends don’t suture wounds. Friends don’t shield you from bullets. Friends don’t save you, again and again. What word was there that could capture what they were to each other? It was right at the tip of her tongue.)

The coffee burned her tongue; all the better, Karen thought. And suddenly, the thought of everything she couldn’t say was ready to burst. 

She managed to set the coffee cup down on the table and a strange sound came out of her. A barking, gasping sound that stole her breath. A wheezing sound. 

Karen clamped a desperate hand over her mouth, two hands, as Frank swiveled to look at her in worry and then uncertain confusion. She caught her breath in a great gasp and a lungful of laughter sobbed out with relief before she buried her face in her hands to contain the sound.

Frank came and sat next to her on the couch and waited until her choking fit of laughter was done, then fetched her a glass of water. 

He didn’t ask why. He merely looked amused.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. I mean, no. But yeah, I’m okay.” She looked at him, the laughter still welling up in her eyes. Frank’s grin was crooked. He was so impossibly himself, and she felt in that moment she knew everything and nothing about him, and a free abandon swung through her gut, a hangover from the fit of laughter, and it made her less cautious.

“Why are you the only one who understands me, Frank?”

He stopped, tilted his head back to look at her down that nose. “I could ask you the same thing. Out of all those lawyers, you understood me. Why is that?”

She flushed a little, that free feeling catching a little on the memory. “Matt doesn’t get it. All those Catholic schoolboy morals. You know that things aren’t that easy.”

“Plenty of things are easy,” he said, his eyes relentless as he gazed at her, serious. “Guns are easy. It’s just everything that happens afterward that gets messy.”

“Exactly.” Karen’s heart sped up a little. Her laughter had died down entirely and she was too aware of how close their knees were on the couch in that moment. “It’s that messiness that I think sometimes will...that I know comes between me and other people. Or the messiness I think they’ll see when they...see me.” 

She held her breath. For a moment, it was there, between them in that moment. James Wesley, and what she wanted to tell Frank about that moment, and everything that happened afterward. It crouched down upon her, feral, the memory of Wesley’s blood on her face, the terrifying knowledge that something could be perfectly, utterly, exquisitely justified, and yet also totally and completely wrong. That knowledge could suffocate her, if she let it. It had tried, so many times.

When she looked at Frank, he looked at her with uncomplicated need flashing in his dark eyes. She saw it there, with everything she wanted to tell him; everything he didn’t know about her. Everything she wasn’t certain she could say.

Everything she wanted from him. 

Karen felt poised on that fulcrum again: what she wanted, and what she could have.

“When I see you? I know what I see,” Frank said. He was closer now, though. Leaning toward her a little, examining her face as much as meeting her eyes.

“I don’t see some kind of mess. No. Or, I don’t give a shit about it, honestly,” he said with a deep chuckle. “I just see someone who needs what I need, maybe,” he said. 

And when he leaned toward her lips she surged forward to meet his kiss without waiting an instant. Warmth and heat met and the deeper and slower and more filthy his kisses became, the more Karen felt every unspoken word and worry melt out of her and disappear.

There was his wound, and Brill, and so much more waiting outside the door of that room. 

And then there were his hands all over her skin, and her mouth devouring his kisses and every sound of pleasure she could manage to evoke from him. There were the way their bodies wanted to move, after so long, avoiding the painful places and finding everything good. And there was everything they both wanted, and would not stop wanting, and those things were so much more important than what waited outside the room, and would have to be, for as long as it took.

 

***


End file.
